The Reaping of Norah Bentley (4 page)

Why had I run away?

Because he was a creepy kid in a graveyard.

Well yeah, that was true. But he was a creepy kid who had saved my life, and by the time I’d reached Church Street, I’d already started to regret panicking like I had. There were so many things I should have asked him, so many things I needed to know about what had really happened at the beach. Needed to know. Not wanted. But I hadn’t turned around.

I looked down at my fingers spread across the blank pages of my notebook. A few of my nails still had traces of flamingo-pink polish on them from when Rachel had visited me in the hospital and, in an attempt to draw attention away from the rainbow assortment of IVs tethered to me, tried to glam me up a bit. Pink wasn’t really my color though. I scrapped absentmindedly against the corners of the peeling polish while the classroom discussion became a dull, mildly annoying buzz in the back of my mind. After a few minutes of scrapping, the only polish left was a blob of bright pink in the center of my right thumb nail; it was rectangular, with a curved top line and a flat bottom line just above my cuticle. It looked like a grave. Of course it did.

I should go back.

Back to the graveyard, though? Somehow I doubted he’d still be there. Surely he had other things to do besides hang out in graveyards and wait for me, and besides, he probably wouldn’t be expecting me to show up again anytime soon after I’d run away like that.

I clenched my fingers into a fist, pulling the pink-polished grave under and out of sight.

Had he really came all the way to Sutton Springs just to see me again? I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around that, to believe it completely. And Harold…who knew he even had a nephew? I’d never seen him with anybody. In fact, I’d always gotten the impression he didn’t like people very much, maybe because he’d been known to chase kids out of the cemetery with that trusty shovel of his.

What if he was telling the truth, though? What if Eli really had come all this way, just to see me? And then I’d repaid him by running away without even thanking him for saving me.

Wow.

How did I run away without saying thank you? Helen would be devastated, especially since I doubted she still had the receipt for her copy of
Miss Manners' Guide to Rearing Perfect Children.
I sighed and sank away from my desk. The cheap, supple plastic chair bent as I pushed my weight back against it, as far back as I dared without risking flipping the whole desk backwards like Jordan Stevens had done in first period last week.

The scraping of metal desk and chair feet a few minutes later was a welcome interruption to my thoughts, though even that didn’t shake me completely from my daze. Rachel did, though, when she dropped an armful of books on my desk with a
bang!
that echoed through the emptying classroom.

“You planning on just hanging out here?”

“What?”

Rachel twisted a lock of her long, sandy blonde hair around her index finger and gave me a wry smile. “I take it you weren’t listening?”

I made sure Mrs. Schulz was out of earshot before answering.

“Not even a little.”

“We’re going to the auditorium, to watch the Playmaker dorks rehearse their
Faust
production.”

“Oh yeah. Schulz said something about that last Friday…” I slid out from behind my desk, which started to tip forward with the weight of Rachel’s books balanced on its front.

I’d never been a sleepwalker, as far as I knew, but I imagined this was what it would feel like: like invisible strings were attached to each of my limbs and moving them against my will. And the master puppeteer, somewhere up above, forced me to straighten up and march my way to Rhyne Auditorium.

#

It was always so dark in here. The stage was lit up like the Charlotte skyline at night, but the soft red glow of exit signs were the only lights that illuminated our path to it. I’d stumbled about half-way down the middle aisle when I heard a voice call my name. I looked up, and all of a sudden the strings I’d needed to pull me here seemed unnecessary; I smiled—probably the first genuine smile I’d worn all day.

Luke Stone had that effect on me.

He was smiling too, and waving at me even as Miss Heller, the Playmakers advisor, waved her entire arm in front of his face, trying to direct his attention back to whatever he was supposed to be doing. After Miss Heller got both her arms flailing, Luke finally consented and, ducking around his annoyed teacher, held up a finger and mouthed
‘just a second
’. I nodded, and Rachel and I shuffled to a seat in the front row.

“I didn’t know Luke was in this one,” Rachel said.

“Yeah. He’s Mephistiphlius, or Mephisto, or Meh—whatever-the-crap-his-name-is.”

“Mephistopheles?” Rachel supplied.

“Yeah. That guy,” I said, not looking at her. I was busy watching Luke help a girl carry a wobbly bookshelf to the back corner of the stage and place it next to Faust’s desk. I’d seen this bleached blonde girl around school once or twice, but I didn’t know her name. I think she was a freshman. That would explain why she giggled uncontrollably every time Luke looked at her.

I’d had to get used to that over the past few months. Over the summer, Luke had gone from the dorky theatre nerd I knew and loved to some guy who could easily have fit in at the jocks’ table in the cafeteria. Like just about everyone else at school, he’d always been taller than me, but since last spring he’d grown at least half a foot more. He’d filled out muscle-wise too, and even from here I could see his biceps flex under the weight of the bookshelf as he lowered it to the stage.

The freshman girl’s face had gone blood red, and something told me it wasn’t just from the strain of carrying the bookshelf. I frowned. It’s not that I was jealous—I wasn’t. It’s not like Luke and me were a couple or anything. Luke was my best friend, though, and I knew he could do better.

“Looks like Luke has an admirer,” Rachel said in a droll voice.

I looked at her with feigned disinterest and settled back in my seat, careful not to be too quick about it. After a moment’s pause, I glanced back at the stage like I was seeing everything on it for the first time.

“Who?”

“Giggles over there.” She nodded towards Blondie. “Can’t you hear her? She sounds like a damn mockingbird.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve seen that girl around. She’s a freshman, isn’t she?”

Rachel nodded. “I think so.”

“I bet Luke is loving the attention,” I said, my voice a little quieter, and maybe a little more smug than I intended. Rachel looked at me questioningly, and I dropped my gaze and started tracing circles in the faded cloth armrest. I didn’t look up again until I heard Luke’s voice a few minutes later.

“Hey Shorty,” he said, plopping down in the seat beside me and laying his arm over top of mine on the armrest. The ancient seat creaked underneath his weight as he settled back in it.

“Hello Lucian,” I said with a smirk. He made a face; he hated being called by his full name as much as I hated being called short. The goofy grin was quick to return to his face though, and our gazes met and brightened with a silent truce.

Never one to be ignored, Rachel got up from her seat and hovered over us. Luke lifted his eyes to her.

“’Sup, Molongoski?” Molongoski is Rachel’s last name, which pretty much nobody can pronounce. Luke likes saying it, and he’s got a bit of a southern drawl to his voice, so he annunciates every syllable and makes it sound really funny.

“Not much,” Rachel said. “Just watching you and your…charming stage friends.”

Luke stared at her with that lopsided smile for a second, then laughed a deep throaty laugh that shook his seat along with his body. He lifted his arm off mine for a second and chill bumps erupted across my skin.

“Are you talking about Anna?” he asked.

“We’re talking about the one giving us the death glare right now,” I said, nodding towards the stage. Anna was standing next to a redheaded girl I recognized from my Spanish class, and both of them had their eyes narrowed in our direction. When she caught me looking at her, she folded her arms across her chest and quickly pretended to be gazing idly around the auditorium. I laughed, and Luke let out a fake sigh.

“Girls…” he said, raking a hand through his curly brown hair.

I cut my eyes sideways at him. “What about them?”

“Nothing, nothing…”

“We’re not
all
empty-headed, giggling school girls, you know,” Rachel said. I nodded empathetically.

Luke’s arm dropped back over mine.

“I know,” he said. Then he lifted the armrest between us and threw his arms around me, practically knocking me off my seat.

“Luke! What the heck are you doing?” I laughed.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s see if we can piss Anna off.”

I pushed away far enough so we could meet each other’s gaze. “You want to use me to ward off your freshman fan club?”

“Only for a minute,” he said with a grin.

“You’re terrible.”

“I know.”

“You keep this up and people are going to talk.”

His chocolately-brown eyes lit with a mischievous gleam. “Oh Norah,” he said in a loud, melodramatic voice, crushing me against him in an intense bear hug. “I love you
so
much!”

“You idiot,” I said, in between laughter and gasps for air. “You do realize Anna is probably up there plotting her revenge, right? She’s probably going to jump me in the parking lot after school.”

“I think you could take her.”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said. “I’ve seen that girl around; those nails of hers are probably long enough to do some damage. Claw open your throat, maybe.”

“Oh dear God,” I said, my voice muffled by the folds of Luke’s hooded sweatshirt. Which smelled really good, by the way—an earthy mixture of sandalwood with a hint of something like cinnamon. “See? You’re endangering my life, Luke.”

He still didn’t let go, though. And I was kind of okay with it. See, this was what I loved about Luke—how his laughter chased away most of the bad stuff from my life, and his embrace kept me safe from all the stuff that insisted on sticking around. I felt safe here, even though I felt like every set of eyes in the room were trained in our direction.

I suddenly felt strangely possessive of him; I don’t think it was so much love, but more like a person desperately clings to a dream, a hope, their faith—whatever light at the end of the tunnel keeps them walking without the need for the puppeteer’s strings. Whatever anchor keeps them from drifting aimlessly in the world’s confusing seas.

I pushed away from Luke just slightly again, and turned to where I could see the stage. I wanted to gauge Anna’s reaction for myself. To warn her, maybe, that Luke was my anchor and she could go find her own.

My eyes never found Anna, though. They fell on someone else instead, standing on the corner of the stage. Part of her figure was hidden behind the velvety black curtain, her fingers resting on the golden cord that cinched the curtain’s center together and drew it back to reveal the stage.

I shoved Luke away and snatched my book bag from the floor, dug through it and found my glasses case.

Luke placed a hand on my back. “You okay?”

Without a word, I took out my glasses and slid them on, then looked back at the corner of the stage. I froze. The figure on stage was no longer blurry. Her face shown clearly in the overhead lights; the beams traced her plain, oval-shaped face—the high-cheekbones, framed by shoulder-length locks of wavy, chestnut colored hair. She stood alone, rocking from side to side as if moving in time to a song no one else could hear. I could see her, as plainly as I could see Rachel’s worried frown when she stepped in front of me, blocking my view of the stage.

“Who is that?” I whispered.

“What?”

“Who is that girl? Over there—” I moved around Rachel and pointed towards the stage. And like I was staring into a mirror, the girl in the corner lifted her arm and pointed back at me. All the while she kept up her swaying, back and forth, back and forth. Her eyes were hollow, her expression blank.

“Who are you talking about?” Luke asked. “I can’t see who you’re pointing at—”

“The one pointing at me,” I said, my hand fumbling for the support of the armrest. “The one who looks…” I trailed off, not wanting to say the next part out loud. Not wanting to sound crazy, especially not after the lunch conversation with Rachel. But I couldn’t deny what I was seeing with my own two eyes. “The one who looks exactly like me,” I finished, breathless. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luke and Rachel exchange a look, but all at once I didn’t care what they thought. I knew what I saw.

My body double nodded as if in approval, still watching me with that ghostly gaze of hers. I nodded too— like I was the mirror now, ready to reflect anything she did. When she stepped forward and out from behind the curtain, I took a step forward, too. When she pulled a hand to her chest and clenched it just above her heart, I did the same. I couldn’t help it.

“Maybe you should sit down, Norah,” Luke said from somewhere behind me. It didn’t seem like a bad idea, but I didn’t move; and when my double shook her head, I did too.